


Star White

by lapisleaves



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fairy Tale, Alternate Universe - Space, Angst, Dark Fantasy, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, M/M, Romance, Sleeping Beauty Elements, Snow White Elements
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-03-01
Updated: 2015-03-01
Packaged: 2018-03-15 17:14:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,071
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3455309
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lapisleaves/pseuds/lapisleaves
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set in space among the stars and planets, and loosely inspired by Sleeping Beauty and Snow White, Will Graham is one of few true Empaths in the universe. After falling in love with Matthew Brown, he is captured by Hannibal to live in a nightmarish eternal unrest, and Matthew will stop at nothing to save him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Star White

The ship moves slowly through the dark satin of space, almost iridescent in the starlight. The nearby planet is the same as it has been for the past ten million years- or has it been longer? Matthew can no longer remember. Beverly will have the answer. 

He knows that time passes differently on the ship than it does down on Svajonė. If he was in orbit around Svajonė, time would move slower, as it would if he was on the planet's surface. But he can't orbit. He has to watch Svajonė as it turns slowly through space, making tracks around its star. He's spent so long up here in the ship, eons reading and swimming and tending the gardens. Millennia he's been up here, and far less than that has passed on Svajonė. Ten years, twenty, a hundred maybe- he doesn't know. The numbers got jumbled in his head long ago.

Winston's dog bowl is still in the kitchen, his name scratched into the surface. Matthew hasn't had the heart to get rid of it. 

The navigation bridge juts out from the ship, and the floor is thick and transparent. Matthew lies on it for hours, forehead resting on his arms as he looks down at Svajonė. It's a beautiful planet, small and dark, covered in a shifting mass of shining space-violet cloud that changes incrementally, like a tide. Matthew knows better than to trust its appearance. The clouds are impassable with no exceptions. 

They are sentient, and he learned that the hard way.

The only way through is to wait for them to clear. Not entirely of course; that would never happen. Just enough so that he can get the ship down without it being pulled apart from the inside. He's seen it happen before. The small openings in the atmosphere, the tears in the clouds. He hasn't seen one deep enough to maneuver through in over a million years. It was at least a million years ago, he thinks. Beyond that Matthew isn't sure. 

Matthew cards a hand through his hair. 

"Hey Bev?"

A river of lights bloom across the bridge, warm and bright.

"I'm here," Beverly says, lights blinking.

Matthew rolls onto his back on the transparent floor, looking up at the ceiling where the lights congregate and move in a slow watercolor of motion.

"How long have we been here?"

"You've been watching Svajonė for 796,999,999 years."

Longer than he thought. Much longer. He sits up.

"And how long did we travel before we got here?"

"203,000,001 years."

The lights pulse, turning blue and lily green. 

"You've been following him for one billion years, Matthew."

That hits him. Matthew closes his eyes and lies back on the floor. He feels like water, like air. He wants to dissipate, just divide into atoms and dust and float through the glass, through the clouds, through Svajonė, through everything. He wants to be nothing. Let his body be taken away, let his mind rest and no longer move. He will be starlight, if he is even that. 

A billion years.

Never did he expect it to take this long. He didn't expect it to be easy, and it hasn't been, but he never fathomed this. A billion years. 

No one can even comprehend a billion years. He can't, and he's lived it.

"You may be the oldest living organism in the universe," Beverly says softly.

Her lights bloom and travel down from the ceiling, muddling the translucence of the floor as they gather around Matthew like a blanket, rosy pink and red.

"Are you all right?" she asks.

Her words are gentle, and she can't hide the anxiety in her voice.

Matthew lays a hand on the floor beside him, and the lights move to puddle under his palm, warm. 

"I'm okay," he murmurs.

Opening his eyes, Matthew turns over and Beverly shifts to the sides to clear his view of Svajonė. 

"I'm not following him anymore, Bev," he says, staring down at the planet, so shining and dark. "He's down there. I know he is. I've found him. I just haven't reached him yet." 

Of all the things that have faded from his memory over all the time he has lived, Will Graham's face has been an exception. Matthew no longer remembers his mother's voice, or the color of his sister's hair, or even her name. Was it Juliet? Jem? Luisa? He thought it began with a J, but he isn't even sure of that anymore. 

She died a long time ago, he realizes. All his family has. He probably has distant relations out there, but he would not know them and they would not know him. The countless generations now separating them have seen to that.

Will Graham though. Will Graham remains in his memory as clear as the day he first saw him. Matthew could pick out his eyes from a million other pairs. He knows the planes of his face, the lines of his jaw, the slow curves of his lips. 

He remembers how his hand feels in his, lightly calloused, warm and gentle. 

He remembers his smile, the sweet curve of his mouth. 

He remembers the look in his eyes as they lay in the meadows of Woltra, moonflowers cushioning their heads as the stars lit their skin. 

Matthew sees him in his dreams, sometimes smiling, sometimes not. He lives for the nights when he sees him smile, and shakes when he wakes up and feels no closer.

"I'll see him soon," Matthew murmurs, the violet light of Svajonė reflecting in his eyes. "I know I will. He's down there, Bev. I've known it since I got here, I've felt it. I'm going to save him."

Beverly blinks sympathetically, lights turning white and blue.

"You've come too far not to," she says.

There's a bit of steel in her tone, and Matthew gives a small smile. Beverly's been his bedrock through this journey, keeping his head and his heart in the right place. She's saved him more times than he can count.

An alert bleeps to life on one of the consoles and Beverly's lights swirl slightly.

"What's the news," Matthew asks, lost in his thoughts as Svajonė moves beneath him.

"You may have an opportunity soon," Beverly says, and Matthew sits up immediately. He walks to the consoles, looking over the screens, all his attention refocused.

"Show me," he says.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Ayyyyy cliffhanger in the prologue! Chapters will be long from here on out. I hope you enjoy the ride.


End file.
